Yee case started in 2006 after killing of Chinatown leader

Updated 2:19 pm, Sunday, March 30, 2014

Photo: Paul Chinn, SFC

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The lead car carrying a portrait of Allen Leung stops in front of Wonkow Art Centres on Jackson Street where Leung was shot to death. A funeral procession for Allen Leung makes its way through the streets of Chinatown in San Francisco, Calif. on 3/18/06. Leung was killed in his business on Jackson Street nearly two weeks ago.
PAUL CHINN/The Chronicle less

The lead car carrying a portrait of Allen Leung stops in front of Wonkow Art Centres on Jackson Street where Leung was shot to death. A funeral procession for Allen Leung makes its way through the streets of ... more

Photo: Paul Chinn, SFC

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Raymond Chow

Raymond Chow

Yee case started in 2006 after killing of Chinatown leader

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The federal investigation that snared state Sen. Leland Yeeand 25 others in a wide-ranging racketeering and corruption case was triggered by the 2006 slaying of San Francisco businessman and tong leader Allen Leung.

Leung - who at the time was the head of the San Francisco-based Ghee Kung Tong or Chinese freemasons - was gunned down by a masked intruder at his Jackson Street import-export business as his wife looked on.

As one of their first acts in trying to solve the murder, San Francisco police and the FBI staked out the swearing-in of Leung's successor, Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, according to the 137-page affidavit made public following Yee's arrest Wednesday. Chow was a local Chinatown mobster who three years earlier had been released from federal prison after snitching out his former crime boss.

Leung had told police before his death that Chow had been trying to extort $100,000 from him and that he feared for his life, law enforcement sources tell us.

Chow appeared to drive the point home himself when he marched through Chinatown in Leung's funeral parade dressed in white - rather than the usual mournful black.

It was a big step for Chow, who had arrived in the country from his native Hong Kong at age 16.

In time, Chow became the right-hand man to triad boss Peter Chong, who came to San Francisco from Hong Kong in the early 1990s with the mission of consolidating all the Chinese criminal gangs under his control.

As far back as 1977, police say, Chow was big enough to be the intended victim of gang warfare when five men opened fire on the legendary Golden Dragon restaurant, killing five and injuring 11 others in what was then the city's worst-ever massacre.

His entanglements piled up with the years.

In 1990, Chow was stopped by police while driving a man in his car in Foster City. Chow's passenger, Norman Hsu, claimed he was the victim of a kidnapping - but declined to testify against Chow. A few years later Hsu himself landed in prison for a Ponzi scheme that exposed his role as a major Democratic Party fundraiser for Hillary Rodham Clintonand others.

In 1992, law enforcement sources say, a federal wiretap revealed that Chow had planned to send three hit men to Boston to knock off a rival tong leader - only the attack was called off when he and his crew got wind that the FBI had caught on to their plan.

Later that year, however, Chow and 14 Wo Hop To cohorts were busted for a home invasion robbery and for running a brothel in Pacifica. That one finally landed Chow behind bars.

Chow was released in 2003 - serving just seven years of a 23-year sentence after he cooperated with authorities to testify against his boss, Chong.

"We were on the lookout in the district when he came back," said now-retired police Cmdr. Jim Dudley.

Chow had claimed to turn his life around - and, either through cunning or intimidation, managed over the past decade to remain a public fixture in San Francisco life.

Despite the many suspicions, Dudley said, Chow "was never tied to any covert criminal activity."

All that changed this past week when he was arrested on money laundering charges.

According to the newly announced federal indictments, Yee himself had suspicions about taking a $5,000 contribution from Chow.

"You know, some people still think that he killed that Allen Leung guy," Yee said in a recorded phone conversation recounted in the affidavit.

Officially, however, Leung's killing remains unsolved to this day.

Done deal: The vote was Friday morning but, truth be told, state Senate Democrats had decided within hours of the indictments being handed down Wednesday that Leland Yee had to go.

Yee was the third sitting Democratic state senator to find himself on the wrong side of the law in recent months.

The other two senators - Roderick Wright, who was convicted of perjury, and Ron Calderon, who was indicted on bribery charges - had been allowed to take voluntary leaves of absence.

But state Senate President Darrell Steinbergsaid one is an anomaly, two is a coincidence, but three is a problem.

The suspended senators will still get their paychecks until their terms expire.

At this point, Steinberg felt there wasn't much else the Senate could do until the court case is fully resolved.

Still, state Sen. Joel Anderson, the lone "no vote," said the three members should have been expelled.

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"There is no penalty here - we are still paying them not to work," said Anderson, R-Alpine (San Diego County). "In my neighborhood, we call that a vacation."

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